Vietnamese “lamp genie” saves hotel in Cambodia

      When Pho De Paris Hotel in Cambodia began to sink, the hotel owner planned to tear it down to build a new one. Hearing about Vietnamese experts, called “lamp genies” for their ability to raise sunken construction works, he changed his mind.
The Pho De Paris Hotel, in Pavet province, Cambodia, is located near the Vietnam-Cambodia international border gate of Moc Bai. It is quite big with four storeys and an entresol. We paid a visit to the site while “lamp genie” Nguyen Van Cu was there.
“When I was invited to rescue the house, I thought it was a simple job. But after eight months of negotiation and waiting for the licence, the work was downgraded severely,” Cu said.
“At the first surveys, I thought only the foundation was sunk, but when we dug up the foundation, we saw many pillars were bent or broken because they had to support weight much greater than their designed capacity. So it is more difficult and dangerous to raise this house than other works I’ve done,” he added.
Cu immediately reinforced the foundation. The hotel owner had removed extraneous things so the house was much lighter.
At the beginning, Cu planned to use Vietnamese workers but because of high labour costs, he only used around ten Vietnamese labourers and hired local workers.
“Vietnamese workers are more skilful and experienced than local workers. But Cambodian workers are also hard-working. The difficulty is the language barrier. When I officially raise the house, I will bring around 30 Vietnamese workers to Cambodia, because this is the most important stage,” Cu said.
Officials of the Cambodian Construction Ministry came to the site to see how the Vietnamese expert was working.
By raising the hotel rather than building a new one, the owner can save a lot of money. Moreover, the time for this task is only five months, compared with two years if he built a new hotel.
The house was completely lifted on April 18. The job was finished within 90 minutes. Cu is working on the final tasks: reinforcing the foundation. After this work, Cu will go to the central city of Hue to raise an ancient communal house and then to the southern province of An Giang to lift a pagoda.